Ozymandias Revisited

Two thousand years have passed.
The men who ruled have gone.
Mountains of crumbled marble lie,
Like timeless sun bleached bones.

Great men are long forgotten, 
If ever great they were. 
Wars were fought and young men died,
And no one seemed to care.

In my time I watched sublime
Rulers without peer.
The path to greatness was their goal
and reason mattered not.

Their power they felt could purge the world
Of evil among men.
But those broken stones tell a tale
Of arrogance and greed.

Those men that thought themselves so great
Were so soon brought to dust. 
The havoc that they wrote in time
Is shown in earthen scars.

Societies ruined by men so bold
Who thought themselves above
The work of giants that came before,
Whose intellect they shunned.

The quest for power without control
For ego's sake alone,
Will destroy the man, for none can stand
As time will rule it's own.

But each one takes away a bit
Of his great country's heart.
He leaves behind the dead remains
And piles of broken stones.